Privacy Degradation by Degree

I’ve recently got a new phone and as such I’ve started afresh on the round of configuring applications and connecting to networks.

As I’ve created each connection I’ve been conscious of the things that we are expected to give away to get something for free; an email address here, my date of birth there, my mother’s maiden name somewhere else. I’m always expected to give away my email address and normally my home address too.

Each transaction over steps, just a bit, the information that they require to achieve their purposes. None of them request all of the information, but each of them requests something different.

The net result is sets of my personal information littered across databases, servers and storage.

It wouldn’t take much to extend the access information from one system into access to information from another system, and from that access to information from another system. That, in turn, would provide access from low security systems into ones where I regard security as paramount – such as my bank account.

It’s a high price to pay for some free WiFi.